‘That’s what poor Hyacinth thinks,’ said Paul Muniment.
The Princess wondered a little that he could allude in that light tone to the faith their young friend had placed in him, considering the consequences such a trustfulness might yet have; but this curious mixture of qualities could only make her visitor, as a tribune of the people, more interesting to her. She abstained for the moment from touching on the subject of Hyacinth’s peculiar position, and only said, ‘Hasn’t he told you about me? Hasn’t he explained me a little?’
‘Oh, his explanations are grand!’ Muniment exclaimed, hilariously. ‘He’s fine sport when he talks about you.’
‘Don’t betray him,’ said the Princess, gently.
‘There’s nothing to betray. You would be the first to admire it if you were there. Besides, I don’t betray,’ the young man added.
‘I love him very much,’ said the Princess; and it would have been impossible for the most impudent cynic to smile at the manner in which she made the declaration.
Paul accepted it respectfully. ‘He’s a sweet little lad, and, putting her ladyship aside, quite the light of our home.’
There was a short pause after this exchange of amenities, which the Princess terminated by inquiring, ‘Wouldn’t some one else do his work quite as well?’
‘His work? Why, I’m told he’s a master-hand.’
‘Oh, I don’t mean his bookbinding.’ Then the Princess added, ‘I don’t know whether you know it, but I am in correspondence with Hoffendahl. I am acquainted with many of our most important men.’
‘Yes, I know it. Hyacinth has told me. Do you mention it as a guarantee, so that I may know you are genuine?’
‘Not exactly; that would be weak, wouldn’t it?’ the Princess asked. ‘My genuineness must be in myself – a matter for you to appreciate as you know me better; not in my references and vouchers.’
‘I shall never know you better. What business is it of mine?’
‘I want to help you,’ said the Princess, and as she made this earnest appeal her face became transfigured; it wore an expression of the most passionate yet the purest longing. ‘I want to do something for the cause you represent; for the millions that are rotting under our feet – the millions whose whole life is passed on the brink of starvation, so that the smallest accident pushes them over. Try me, test me; ask me to put my hand to something, to prove that I am as deeply in earnest as those who have already given proof. I know what I am talking about – what one must meet and face and count with, the nature and the immensity of your organisation. I am not playing. No, I am not playing.’
Paul Muniment watched her with his steady smile until this sudden outbreak had spent itself. ‘I was afraid you would be like this – that you would turn on the fountains and let off the fireworks.’
‘Permit me to believe you thought nothing about it. There is no reason my fireworks should disturb you.’
‘I have always had a fear of women.’
‘I see – that’s a part of your prudence,’ said the Princess, reflectively. ‘But you are the sort of man who ought to know how to use them.’
Muniment said nothing, immediately, in answer to this; the way he appeared to consider the Princess suggested that he was not following closely what she said, so much as losing himself in certain matters which were beside that question – her beauty, for instance, her grace, her fragrance, the spectacle of a manner and quality so new to him. After a little, however, he remarked, irrelevantly, ‘I’m afraid I’m very rude.’
‘Of course you are, but it doesn’t signify. What I mainly object to is that you don’t answer my questions. Would not some one else do Hyacinth Robinson’s work quite as well? Is it necessary to take a nature so delicate, so intellectual? Oughtn’t we to keep him for something finer?’
‘Finer than what?’
‘Than what Hoffendahl will call upon him to do.’
‘And pray what is that?’ the young man demanded. ‘You know nothing about it; no more do I,’ he added in a moment. ‘It will require whatever it will. Besides, if some one else might have done it, no one else volunteered. It happened that Robinson did.’
‘Yes, and you nipped him up!’ the Princess exclaimed.
At this expression Muniment burst out laughing. ‘I have no doubt you can easily keep him, if you want him.’
‘I should like to do it in his place – that’s what I should like,’ said the Princess.
‘As I say, you don’t even know what it is.’
‘It may be nothing,’ she went on, with her grave eyes fixed on her visitor. ‘I dare say you think that what I wanted to see you for was to beg you to let him off. But it wasn’t. Of course it’s his own affair, and you can do nothing. But oughtn’t it to make some difference, when his opinions have changed?’
‘His opinions? He never had any opinions,’ Muniment replied. ‘He is not like you and me.’
‘Well, then, his feelings, his attachments. He hasn’t the passion for democracy he had when I first knew him. He’s much more tepid.’
‘Ah, well, he’s quite right.’
The Princess stared. ‘Do you mean that you are giving up –?’
‘A fine stiff conservative is a thing I perfectly understand,’ said Paul Muniment. ‘If I were on the top, I’d stick there.’
‘I see, you are not narrow,’ the Princess murmured, appreciatively.
‘I beg your pardon, I am. I don’t call that wide. One must be narrow to penetrate.’
‘Whatever you are, you’ll succeed,’ said the Princess. ‘Hyacinth won’t, but you will.’
‘It depends upon what you call success!’ the young man exclaimed. And in a moment, before she replied, he added, looking about the room, ‘You’ve got a very lovely dwelling.’
‘Lovely? My dear sir, it’s hideous. That’s what I like it for,’ the Princess added.
‘Well, I like it; but perhaps I don’t know the reason. I thought you had given up everything – pitched your goods out of window, for a grand scramble.’
‘Well, so I have. You should have seen me before.’
‘I should have liked that,’ said Muniment, smiling. ‘I like to see solid wealth.’
‘Ah, you’re as bad as Hyacinth. I am the only consistent one!’ the Princess sighed.
‘You have a great deal left, for a person who has given everything away.’
‘These are not mine – these abominations – or I would give them, too!’ Paul’s hostess rejoined, artlessly.
Muniment got up from his chair, still looking about the room. ‘I would give my nose for such a place as this. At any rate, you are not yet reduced to poverty.’
‘I have a little left – to help you.’
‘I dare say you’ve a great deal,’ said Paul, with his north-country accent.
‘I could get money – I could get money,’ the Princess continued, gravely. She had also risen, and was standing before him.
These two remarkable persons faced each other, their eyes met again, and they exchanged a long, deep glance of mutual scrutiny. Each seemed to drop a plummet into the other’s mind. Then a strange and, to the Princess, unexpected expression passed over the countenance of the young man; his lips compressed themselves, as if he were making a strong effort, his colour rose, and in a moment he stood there blushing like a boy. He dropped his eyes and stared at the carpet, while he observed, ‘I don’t trust women – I don’t trust women!’
‘I am sorry, but, after all, I can understand it,’ said the Princess; ‘therefore I won’t insist on the question of your allowing me to work with you. But this appeal I will make to you: help me a little yourself – help me!’
‘How do you mean, help you?’ Muniment demanded, raising his eyes, which had a new, conscious look.
‘Advise me; you will know how. I am in trouble – I have gone very far.’
‘I have no doubt of that!’ said Paul, laughing.
‘I mean with some of those people abroad. I’m not frigh
tened, but I’m perplexed; I want to know what to do.’
‘No, you are not frightened,’ Muniment rejoined, after a moment.
‘I am, however, in a sad entanglement. I think you can straighten it out. I will give you the facts, but not now, for we shall be interrupted; I hear my old lady on the stairs. For this, you must come to see me again.’
At this point the door opened, and Madame Grandoni appeared, cautiously, creepingly, as if she didn’t know what might be going on in the parlour. ‘Yes, I will come again,’ said Paul Muniment, in a low but distinct tone; and he walked away, passing Madame Grandoni on the threshold, without having exchanged the hand-shake of farewell with his hostess. In the hall he paused an instant, feeling she was behind him; and he learned that she had not come to exact from him this omitted observance, but to say once more, dropping her voice, so that her companion, through the open door, might not hear –
‘I could get money – I could!’
Muniment passed his hand through his hair, and, as if he had not heard her, remarked, ‘I have not given you, after all, half Rosy’s messages.’
‘Oh, that doesn’t matter!’ the Princess answered, turning back into the parlour.
Madame Grandoni was in the middle of the room, wrapped in her old shawl, looking vaguely around her, and the two ladies heard the house-door close. ‘And pray, who may that be? Isn’t it a new face?’ the elder one inquired.
‘He’s the brother of the little person I took you to see over the river – the chattering cripple with the wonderful manners.’
‘Ah, she had a brother! That, then, was why you went?’
It was striking, the good-humour with which the Princess received this rather coarse thrust, which could have been drawn from Madame Grandoni only by the petulance and weariness of increasing age, and the antipathy she now felt to Madeira Crescent and everything it produced. Christina bent a calm, charitable smile upon her ancient companion, and replied –
‘There could have been no question of our seeing him. He was, of course, at his work.’
‘Ah, how do I know, my dear? And is he a successor?’
‘A successor?’
‘To the little bookbinder.’
‘My darling,’ said the Princess, ‘you will see how absurd that question is when I tell you he’s his greatest friend!’
37
Half an hour after Paul Muniment’s departure the Princess heard another rat-tat-tat at her door; but this was a briefer, discreeter peal, and was accompanied by a faint tintinnabulation. The person who had produced it was presently ushered in, without, however, causing Madame Grandoni to look round, or rather to look up, from an arm-chair as low as a sitz-bath, and of very much the shape of such a receptacle, in which, near the fire, she had been immersed. She left this care to the Princess, who rose on hearing the name of the visitor pronounced, inadequately, by her maid. ‘Mr Fetch,’ Assunta called it; but the Princess recognised without difficulty the little fat, ‘reduced’ fiddler of whom Hyacinth had talked to her, who, as Pinnie’s most intimate friend, had been so mixed up with his existence, and whom she herself had always had a curiosity to see. Hyacinth had not told her he was coming, and the unexpectedness of the apparition added to its interest. Much as she liked seeing queer types and exploring out-of-the-way social corners, she never engaged in a fresh encounter, nor formed a new relation of this kind, without a fit of nervousness, a fear that she might be awkward and fail to hit the right tone. She perceived in a moment, however, that Mr Vetch would take her as she was and require no special adjustments; he was a gentleman and a man of experience, and she would only have to leave the tone to him. He stood there with his large, polished hat in his two hands, a hat of the fashion of ten years before, with a rusty sheen and an undulating brim – stood there without a salutation or a speech, but with a little fixed, acute, tentative smile, which seemed half to inquire and half to explain. What he explained was that he was clever enough to be trusted, and that if he had come to see her that way, abruptly, without an invitation, he had a reason which she would be sure to think good enough when she should hear it. There was even a certain jauntiness in this confidence – an insinuation that he knew how to present himself to a lady; and though it quickly appeared that he really did, that was the only thing about him that was inferior – it suggested a long experience of actresses at rehearsal, with whom he had formed habits of advice and compliment.
‘I know who you are – I know who you are,’ said the Princess, though she could easily see that he knew she did.
‘I wonder whether you also know why I have come to see you,’ Mr Vetch replied, presenting the top of his hat to her as if it were a looking-glass.
‘No, but it doesn’t matter. I am very glad; you might even have come before.’ Then the Princess added, with her characteristic honesty, ‘Don’t you know of the great interest I have taken in your nephew?’
‘In my nephew? Yes, my young friend Robinson. It is in regard to him that I have ventured to intrude upon you.’
The Princess had been on the point of pushing a chair toward him, but she stopped in the act, staring, with a smile. ‘Ah, I hope you haven’t come to ask me to give him up!’
‘On the contrary – on the contrary!’ the old man rejoined, lifting his hand expressively, and with his head on one side, as if he were holding his violin.
‘How do you mean, on the contrary?’ the Princess demanded, after he had seated himself and she had sunk into her former place. As if that might sound contradictious, she went on: ‘Surely he hasn’t any fear that I shall cease to be a good friend to him?’
‘I don’t know what he fears; I don’t know what he hopes,’ said Mr Vetch, looking at her now with a face in which she could see there was something more tonic than old-fashioned politeness. ‘It will be difficult to tell you, but at least I must try. Properly speaking, I suppose, it’s no business of mine, as I am not a blood-relation to the boy; but I have known him since he was an urchin, and I can’t help saying that I thank you for your great kindness to him.’
‘All the same, I don’t think you like it,’ the Princess remarked. ‘To me it oughtn’t to be difficult to say anything.’
‘He has told me very little about you; he doesn’t know I have taken this step,’ the fiddler said, turning his eyes about the room, and letting them rest on Madame Grandoni.
‘Why do you call it a “step”?’ the Princess asked. ‘That’s what people say when they have to do something disagreeable.’
‘I call very seldom on ladies. It’s a long time since I have been in the house of a person like the Princess Casamassima. I remember the last time,’ said the old man. ‘It was to get some money from a lady at whose party I had been playing – for a dance.’
‘You must bring your fiddle, sometime, and play to us. Of course I don’t mean for money,’ the Princess rejoined.
‘I will do it with pleasure, or anything else that will gratify you. But my ability is very small. I only know vulgar music – things that are played at theatres.’
‘I don’t believe that; there must be things you play for yourself, in your room, alone.’
For a moment the old man made no reply; then he said, ‘Now that I see you, that I hear you, it helps me to understand.’
‘I don’t think you do see me!’ cried the Princess, kindly, laughing; while the fiddler went on to ask whether there were any danger of Hyacinth’s coming in while he was there. The Princess replied that he only came, unless by prearrangement, in the evening, and Mr Vetch made a request that she would not let their young friend know that he himself had been with her. ‘It doesn’t matter; he will guess it, he will know it by instinct, as soon as he comes in. He is terribly subtle,’ said the Princess; and she added that she had never been able to hide anything from him. Perhaps it served her right, for attempting to make a mystery of things that were not worth it.
‘How well you know him!’ Mr Vetch murmured, with his eyes wandering again to Madame Grandoni,
who paid no attention to him as she sat staring at the fire. He delayed, visibly, to say what he had come for, and his hesitation could only be connected with the presence of the old lady. He said to himself that the Princess might have divined this from his manner; he had an idea that he could trust himself to convey such an intimation with clearness and yet with delicacy. But the most she appeared to apprehend was that he desired to be presented to her companion.
‘You must know the most delightful of women. She also takes a particular interest in Mr Robinson: of a different kind from mine – much more sentimental!’ And then she explained to the old lady, who seemed absorbed in other ideas, that Mr Vetch was a distinguished musician, a person whom she, who had known so many in her day, and was so fond of that kind of thing, would like to talk with. The Princess spoke of ‘that kind of thing’ quite as if she herself had given it up, though Madame Grandoni heard her by the hour together improvising on the piano revolutionary battle-songs and pæans.
‘I think you are laughing at me,’ Mr Vetch said to the Princess, while Madame Grandoni twisted herself slowly round in her chair and considered him. She looked at him leisurely, up and down, and then she observed, with a sigh –
‘Strange people – strange people!’
‘It is indeed a strange world, madam,’ the fiddler replied; after which he inquired of the Princess whether he might have a little conversation with her in private.
She looked about her, embarrassed and smiling. ‘My dear sir, I have only this one room to receive in. We live in a very small way.’
‘Yes, your excellency is laughing at me. Your ideas are very large, too. However, I would gladly come at any other time that might suit you.’
‘You impute to me higher spirits than I possess. Why should I be so gay?’ the Princess asked. ‘I should be delighted to see you again. I am extremely curious as to what you may have to say to me. I would even meet you anywhere – in Kensington Gardens or the British Museum.’